This is the Google Nexus 7 tablet, second generation. Ain't she a beaut?

I couldn't wait to get my hands on this gorgeous seven inch tablet. I, in all honesty, expected it to be smaller. Instead I was pleasantly surprised that my expectations were blown out of the water.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of what I love about the Nexus 7, let's talk about the specifications & product info, you know, all that technical mumbo jumbo.

The Google Nexus 7 II tablet has a brilliantly bright 7" 1920x1200 IPS LCD high-resolution display with a 10-finger capacitive touch screen. It is said to have up to 10 hours of battery life for web browsing, video playback or reading with the 4.2V1 Li-Pllyner battery. It comes in both a 16GB & 32GB. The Google Nexus 7 II is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 8064 1.5GHz processor & Android™ 4.3, Jelly Bean Operating System. It has two cameras, a 1.2MP front facing camera and 5MP rear camera that shoots photos and video. It comes with 802.11 a/b/g/n (that's wifi) and Bluetooth v4.0 built in. It comes pre-loaded with Google Search by Voice 2.1, Gmail, Contact Sync, Calendar Sync, Talk, Maps, Street View, News & Weather, YouTube, Movie Studio, & of course the Android Market. It also has a built-in microphone, SlimPort, headphone jack,
& two high quality stereo speakers. The accessories included are an adapter & power plug, user manual and warranty card. When purchasing the Google Nexus 7 tablet from Staples.com it comes with a 1 year MFR limited parts and labor warranty.

For more of the technical & specific mumbo jumbo, please visit Staples.com.

I was very impressed with the Google Nexus 7 tablet as I removed it from it's vibrant covered box. As I removed it from it's packaging, I was a bit curious as to why there wasn't an owners manual. But I quickly left my curiosity behind as I pressed & held the power button to boot up the tablet.

The screen is absolutely beautiful. All I could keep saying to the Mister is how pretty the darn thing was. On initial startup, it prompts you to select the language you wish to continue in. From there it takes you to your wifi set up.

Don't mind the dust. My house has issues. lol.

Here is where I ran into an issue. I could not for the life of me get my pretty new friend to connect to my wifi. After trying for over an hour & a half working with my wifi settings & having no joy, I decided to wait & take it to McDonalds in the morning where I know they have free wifi. In the mean time I decided to google to see if people have had similar issues with wifi connection & I was over whelmed by just how many people were having the same, if not similar issue as me. Not wanting to get to discouraged, I decided to just wait it out.

At McDonalds, while sipping down my $1 iced coffee, I got the tablet to connect right away to the free wifi. Once it connected to the wifi, it prompted me to sign into my Google account. From there I went in to the system settings & updated the tablet. Completely hoping that the update would fix whatever it was that was keeping it from connecting to my home wifi.

I arrived home & instantly attempted to connect to the wifi. No joy, again. So back into my modem/wifi settings it was. After reading everything I could about how to fix this issue, I nearly gave up. I decided that I didn't really have anything to lose, so I went into my own modem settings & restored the entire thing back to factory settings. BINGO. That worked. My tablet connected no problem. Apparently something in my own modem settings was keeping me from connecting. So it really had nothing to do with the Nexus 7 tablet at all! So anyone who finds this post, because you are having issues connecting your new friend to your current wifi, try resetting your wifi settings by accessing your modem through your ip address. It worked for me!

Once I was in & connected. I found the owners manual, Guidebook. Guess where it was!?! On the tablet itself. It made sense once I thought about it. Ha! (See how brilliant that screen is!)

The tablet came with a few things installed. A lot of Google apps were already installed. Gmail, Google Play & Google Maps to name a few. I do believe I had to install Facebook on my own, but it wasn't hard to do. I easily was able to download all my favorite Google apps. Those who have never had a Android, might take some time to get used to it. I've never owned an Apple product to be able to compare the play stores

The buttons on the Tablet seem to be pretty comparable to any standard smart phone. Headphone jack, volume buttons, power button, charging port, & a camera on both the front & the rear.

I found it extremely easy to type in portrait mode. For me it was not so easy in landscape. Either way the buttons are perfect. I have fairly large fingers & I don't think the buttons are too small, or spaced awkwardly.

Although I wasn't really too impressed with the camera on the Nexus 7. The video camera wasn't too bad. Here is a short clip of Odin playing fetch to give you an idea. Make sure you change it to 720pHD.

I also found that you can get quite nice pictures with the Nexus, if you download a different camera app from the Google Play store. My first Play store purchase, when I first got into this Smart Phone Android business was the Pro HDR Camera. The greatest part, you buy the app once & it is good for all compatible Android devices.

Nexus 7 with the Standard Camera

Nexus 7 with Pro HDR Camera

Gaming is fun on the large screen. Yes, my fellow Candy Crush addicts... You can play Candy Crush on this beautiful tablet!

I downloaded Candy Crush almost right away. Along with Triple Town, I love this game. I actually paid the $3.99 to unlock all levels! Bubble Witch Saga & Bejeweled Blitz were two more I had to have. I had these on my HTC Evo, but I could only have one or two at a time because of space issues. With this 16GB tablet I have all the space I could ever need!

And because you have all that space... You can take advantage of all the books & magazines that Google Play store has to offer. I currently have my eye on Crochet Today! magazine. I downloaded a few freebies to get started. Catching Fire, The Time Machine, & Pride & Prejudice are just a couple of the free books that have made their way to my Tablet. Eat that Kindle! ;) You can also watch movies from the Google play store or your Netflix Queue. Not to mention clips on YouTube or music on Pandora.

There is so much you can do with this beautiful 7 inch tablet. I know I use the word beautiful a lot in this review, but I really feel that word best describes it! Battery use is pretty decent. I am able to use the tablet most of the day without needing to charge it. And when it does charge, it doesn't seem to take very long at all.

I'm quite fond of my new friend. I've had it for over a week now & I've honestly been neglecting both my laptop & my HTC Evo. But I don't feel too bad about it, being that I can do tons more on my Nexus. I've replied to emails, checked Facebook, played games, pinned on Pinterest, shared photos on Instagram, commented on blogs through Bloglovin, watched movies on Netflix, listened to music on Pandora, Googled recipes, checked the weather, used a calculator, & have even looked up actors & movies on IMDb.

It was love at first tap.

Do you have a tablet, kindle, or maybe an ipad? What's your must have app?

*Disclaimer: The awesome people at Staples &/or Staples PR Team sent me a product to review for my expressed interest in their company. I was in no way paid for my opinions. As always, the opinions expressed in this post are 100% my own and were in no way influenced by the company providing the product.